I know this is a total newb question, but I was doing the airanger tutorial from this site, and on page 5 of that tutorial:

http://www.cncgeneralsworld.com/page.asp?page=tutorial:infantrymodellingandanimation (page5)

It tells me to "click the Auto-Link button" Which is supposed to be on the "right side of the screen". I'm not seeing that, and I was wondering if someone more experienced could explain to me where the button is, or why I am not seeing it. I've looked through every single section of all of the tabs on the right and made sure to scroll through all of the different options for each tab, i.e. create, modify, etc.

I've looked around on google but there are only 3 posts that deal with Auto-Link or Autolink there.

Again, I realize that this is pretty dumb, and there's a simple explanation for it, but I can't for the life of me figure this out.

If someone could point me to the elusive "Auto-Link" button, that would be great.

moved to the maps and mods forum since it's about modding.
i think the easiest and quickest way to get an answer would be to send a pm to jaymioz since he created that toturial.

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If it's the "Select and Link" button which sounds closest to what he's talking about, it's on the top left tool bar, a button with the image of two boxes linked with chains

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I was confused, because I tried that, and I'm not sure what it did (nothing blatant happened when that was done, so I couldn't tell if I had done anything right, at that point). I didn't want to get all the way through, and find out that I messed that part up.

I sent a pm to Jay, so I'll wait a few weeks and see if he gets back to me.

In the tutorial, it says that the Auto-Link button is on the right side of the screen, so that was even further confusion.

In the meantime, further suggestions, agreeances, etc would be appreciated.

Thanks Krit.

The "Select and Link" button degsignates which object is attached to which object so that when you move the "mother" object, the "child" or "linked" object will move with it without being selected. This is different from the normal "Attach" action from the fact that the objects still remain as they are with their own name and not merged into the same object. To link an object, select the child object, press the "Select and Link" button and select the "mother" object. You can tell which object is linked to which by pressing "H" and ticking the "Display subtree" box.

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I suppose I can surmise that this will not adversely affect the outcome of the modelling process then.

Thanks again Krit.

Looking at that part of the tutorial, looks like the "Select and Link" button is not it, lol. But then again, I model stuffs but not infantry so I never come across that part.

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I sent you a PM back, but for those of the public or the curious people here, this is the PM I send, so if he get's you may be able to help.



Hey bud,

There is an image at the bottom of this post to help you out.

Basic concepts:

The WWSkin is a bone modifier which holds the skeleton bone information, this information is then attached to the model so they interact with each other. So in essence the WWSkin links the bones to the model.

First you must link the WWSkin to the model, do this by creating a WWSkin bone modifier and placing it anywhere in the view port.

The WWSkin modifier can be found in the create panel on the left (the icon of a Cursor with a star under it) and then in the Space Warps tab (square icon with 3 wavy blue lines in it) then a button that says WWSkin.

Once that is created don't attach the bones yet, you must link the model to the WWskin modifier first. Do this by selecting the Bind to a spacewarp button in the top right corner and then click on the modifier in the view port and drag over to the model.

De-select the model by clicking on the WWSkin Binding in the modifier stack in the top right corner, this will allow you to select something else, now select the WWSkin modifier that you placed in the view port which you attached to the model and click on Add Bones, and add all the ones from the skeleton.

Now select the model again, and make sure that select mode for the cursor is active (the cursor icon found in the top left corner of RenX (if you highlight it, the name is Select object)). Now you should see the blue dots representing the vertex’s on the model. Select them all and click on Auto-Link, this will try to link each vertex of the model to the closest bone, which isn't always correct as you will see when you export it to the game and test it...

 

You should now be able to follow the rest of the tutorial but lot of this probably doesn’t make any sense as its 12:30 in the morning here, so if you don’t understand just PM or ask in the forums they’ll be able to reply faster than what I can.

Oh geez, I just figured out what I was doing wrong. 😛 I wasn't following the directions closely enough.

What I did was drag from the WWSkin object, to the model, not the other way around. What a rookie mistake! 😊

Mint, tell me if you have any other troubles.